All I said was we should treat everybody the same regardless of race or gender, I don't see how this is unfair. I think the real argument here comes down to an old standard, Nature vs Nurture

If you believe it is all nurture that determines a persons life then yes, we should encourage everyone to be whatever it is that society needs most at the time. I don't buy this argument though, I think some people (at least partially by nature) just don't make good (fill in the blank career choice here). Great example, I'm 5 foot 4, I would make a horrible basketball player, you can encourage me all you want, and I might even try to go for that career but I would still make a horrible basketball player.

Lets face it, Men and Women are different. Its pretty obvious that there are certain careers that men excel at by nature and others that women excel at by nature. By all means break the mold if that is what you want to do, there are always exceptions to the rule. I think the same is true of races or any other defining factor of humanity. To deny that certain groups of people tend to act in similar ways (White males included) is simply foolish.

...now if you'll excuse me i believe its time for me to go exert my imperialistic nature on some unsuspecting culture.

"Even the cheap or free flip phones cost significantly more than what you pay for them." Actually I just bricked my iPhone 3g a month or so ago and I was still on contract so I had to pay full price for a cheap flip phone. My total cost

But still if you think about it, the cost of the iPhone even without a contract isn't that much. You are essentially getting a laptop computer (al-beit a low power one) But its super-engineered to fit in a small space. Think about how much more you pay for a laptop vs a tower computer (same concept). Also if you compare it to how much you would pay if you purchased a $500 item on credit (or god forbid one of those Rent-a-center ripoffs) you're actually getting off pretty easy.

A lot of people think it would be nice if everyone everywhere could get a degree and be a professional but its just not practical. Not everyone can be a doctor or a programmer or we won't have anyone left to work retail or pave the roads. Colleges want to get everybody to go to college. why is that? well duh they make money that's why.
Why should we encourage women and minorities to go to college any more that we encourage anyone else? My thought is if these people have no motivation on their own to go to college and work in the sciences then chances are even if someone pushes them to do it they will never be that good at their career. Especially in the sciences you really have to have a passion for it, or you are not going anywhere.
And who says science is what we need more of anyway? everyone thinks that if we just had enough scientists we could solve all the worlds problems, if you ask me what we really need is good customer service people. we need people with social skills so they can actually understand someone else's viewpoint. It's things like this that will prevent wars not science.

Ok so i'm not here trying to blatantly give a promo out to the product that i just spent a year developing so i won't say the name. I'll just say that is from one of the leading alarm company manufacturers and you can find it on the net. The gist of the product is this: why should you have to have a separate device that you put on your keyring that allows you to start your car when you already have a smartphone (well most people do, or at least most people who can currently afford keyless entry on their car).
What our product does is allows you to open your car door (and lock the door and start the engine/warm it up) right from your phone. The good thing about this is that on top of each account being password protected, they are also linked to the particular identification code for your exact phone so there is no way that anyone is going to hack this (in theory). The way it works is via a cellular device not a radio wave emitting from the car so its much more difficult to intercept (in theory). Also the best part about it is that because it's a cellular device we can also track the exact location of the vehicle so in the case that someone does steal your car we will find them right away.
The trick to protecting yourself from thieves and criminals is to stay one step ahead of them. 15 years ago this was with keyless technology, but now this is old school, we simply need to switch to the latest gadget.

Ok ok so the internet is not a series of tubes, but i think you are all missing the point. What if it WAS a series of Tubes? Think of it. Remember those old drive through banks where you got your money or made your deposit via a tube. Think of how many gigabytes, heck terabytes could be put inside a cylindrical hard drive shaped like one of those?. You could solve your bandwidth problem immediately, one terabyte would take a mere moment or two to receive (assuming your isp was within 30 feet or so of your computer). Ted was a genious.

Now, of course this system wouldn't work on a national level because those tubes would get too long, but if you were to combine it with my new projectile delivery service i think you might have something. want a youtube video? simple, put it on a flash drive, toss it in the morter set the trajectory and BAM there you are!

I thought i'd add my 2 cents here as i am currently working on a project that does exactly what you want, however it is not open source. The problem is that it costs money in order to use either Bing or Google maps and i have not seen a decent alternative yet. Also what seems like a simple coding project to make this new application is likely not as easy as you think for various reasons. We have a dedicated team of 7 coders and we have even hired a few outside contractors, if i were to guess i'd say we've spent over a million dollars so far developing this software and its not done yet. So here's your choice, spend a million developing your own software or buy a pre-made system.

I think it all kinda depends on where you are. sometimes you have no choice but to be a duck tape programmer. if they want it done next week or your job is on the line then you do what you have to to make it work. the problem comes when someone doesn't realize that there is another way. I'm sure your "Crufty Joe" was at his position long enough and had enough expertise to be able to convince the bosses "hey we need to spend some time and clean up this code" but instead he just kept going on his way.

I've had this same problem in the graphic design business. i spent a good portion of the last few years cleaning up designs made by my predecessor (and even ones made by me before i knew how to do it correctly) so i get it. but now that i'm trying to break into the programming world i find myself having to resort to duct-tape style coding just to get stuff done, what looks better on your resume? a website that you hacked together that looks like crap in the back end that someone else had to spend a year cleaning up, or no website at all?

yea thats completely true, i know this because i used to be a "guru" in a music store (which is all but extinct now) this is not an Apple specific idea. My question is why aren't all the employee's gurus?

You need to go on "The Lions Den"! ("its a show on BBC look it up, yes there are other channels besides Sci-Fi)
you'll be right after the guy with the little floaty thing that helps toddlers learn to use the toilet!

Electric cars get 300mi a tank? that's not bad compared to the about 160 a tank that natural gas gets (at least the ones i used to drive back in '02) but still, what if you do get that 80 mile fare right at the end of your tank, your screwed, in my opinion if you have 300 miles per tank that means you fill up every 150 miles.

What you say about NY makes sense, In OC however i would get a 50-80 mile fare at least once per shift. And every once in a while you will get the 200+ mile fare, i had one 600 mile fare and at least 2 200+ fares in the few years that i worked there and if i had been unlucky enough to have natural gas or electric i would not have gotten any of those.

Also in OC there are no shifts, every driver is a contractor. all the cab company does is lease the car, its up to the driver to make his hours. leases are for 24 hours or 7-days, and it's illegal to share the vehicle with another driver

basically the point i'm trying to make here is if the cab companies really wanted to make it better for the drivers & passengers, they would treat the drivers better. I however don't think thats the case because drivers are a dime a dozen, they are simply trying to squeeze as much money out of the situation as they possibly can.

I what other industry do you see workers working 60-80 hours a week and making less than minimum wage? I knew several drivers who literally lived in their cabs, they would work all day every day when they weren't sleeping or eating and they would barely have enough at the end of the week to buy the cab for another week.

As a former cab driver i can attest to that fact, electric simply will not work, and neither will natural gas. When i used to drive i would put in an average of 400-450 miles in a 24 hour shift. now with gas that means i had to fill up 2-3 times a day because you never want to be below half a tank (in case you get a long fare) When i switched to natural gas i had to fill up 5-6 times a day which was extremely annoying because in my area (orange county, CA) there are only about 6 natural gas pumps

I don't know about New York, but if its the same as my area, the single best thing that they could do to improve just about everything is charge a reasonable rate to lease a cab (to the driver) for a time period under 24 hours. Do you realize how F-ing crazy you go when you drive for 24 hours straight? and believe me if you do not drive for 24 hours straight then you will make less than minimum wage. It is absolutely rediculus. The taxi cab industry may not be run by a mafia, but it might as well be.

Side note (to the management of Yellow Cab of Orange county), BURN IN H*LL!! i will never EVER come back to your company, (as you insisted i would) i learned how to do something (IT/web) and now i make literally 5 times as much as i used to so screw off!

Ok, i know this is officially way off topic, but i can't resist. you need to check out http://www.sealandgov.org/ and its relation to the internet via HavenCo. It's pretty much what you are suggesting, except that it failed. but the history of Sealand is a good read.